Day 39 - Alnwick, Downton Abbey, and John Wesley

Today we visited Alnwick, once a major town on the trading route from England to Scotland, famous today for its castle and gardens and another setting for (2014 Christmas special) Downton Abbey. There has been a castle on this site for over 1000 years. During the middle ages, the castle was used as a garrison and a defence for England’s border against attack from Scottish forces.

The Abbot’s Tower may have been a place of refuge for the head monks of Alnwick Abbey or Hulne Priory, both of which stood in Hulne Park just west of the castle. As its watchtower gives an excellent view to the north-west – the direction from which danger and Scottish attack was most likely to approach. The castle is still the country seat of the Duke of Northumberland. Alnwick’s Christian heritage is believed to go back as far as Saxon times – over 1,000 years – whilst recorded evidence covers more than 860 years. The remains of St Leonard’s Hospital Chapel stand in a field to the north of Alnwick, a short way up the hill from the Lion Bridge. The Hospital Chapel was founded between 1193-1216 in memory of King Malcolm III of Scotland, who was mortally wounded nearby in the Battle of Alnwick in 1093.

Alnwick Abbey was an abbey of Premonstratensian Canons, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and St. James, founded in the year 1147. Only the defensive gateway tower remains.

The abbey housed between 17 and 30 canons until it was eventually dissolved by Henry VIII in 1535. The abbey was excavated in 1889 and the rough layout of the abbey buildings can be made out on the ground. 

Methodism began in Alnwick with the work of a local preacher who established a society. John and Charles Wesley arrived in 1748, and preached from the steps of the market cross,

John described the town as 'famous for all kinds of wickedness'.

However the Wesley brothers had a long relationship with Alnwick Methodist society and in 1786 John Wesley laid the foundation stone of the present chapel and Manse in Chapel Lane (which was remodelled 100 years later when the gallery was floored over, It remains in this form today.) Next door the Manse is now rented out as holiday apartments. John Wesley’s original 1786 pulpit is still preserved upstairs in the corner of the Chapel, originally it stood in an elevated position in the middle of the South Wall, and round pillars show the position and shape of the 1786 gallery that faced it. Wesley preached from this pulpit for the first time in May 1788, and for the last time on May 10th 1790, just a few months before he died.

Alnwick Methodist Church

Wesley’s journal records several of his visits including:

Sunday 17^th May 1761, I preached at eight in Alnwick, and about one at Alemouth, a poor, barren place, where, as yet, there is no fruit of the seed which has been sown: but there may be, since many are still willing to hear. In the evening a multitude of people, and a little army of soldiers were gathered in the Market-Place at Alnwick. In the morning they were to march for Germany. I hope some of them have “put their armour on”

Wesley House - Former Manse at rear of church

There have been other Methodist Societies in Alnwick: Bethel Chapel in St Michael’s Lane and a chapel in Bondgate Without.

A great catastrophe happened on Christmas day in 1806. A great winter storm and the church was blown down so that the village was left without an Anglican Church. The Duke of Northumberland eventually took pity on the villagers and having bought the former granary, covered it into a temporary church until a new church was built in 1876.